This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Heather S. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Contemporary Romance category.
The summary:
Rhythm of their hearts
Slick lines and sweet nothings have zero effect on ambitious real estate developer Julie Dominick. Her love rules have thankfully saved her from dealing with messy relationship complications. But since R & B superstar Dante Wilson hired her to open his new Malibu nightclub, he’s determined to add some pleasure to their business dealings. And Julie’s strategy to protect her heart may not stand up to his seductive appeal.
Growing up in a music dynasty, Dante enjoys all the female attention that comes with his fame. For the first time, he knows what it feels like to be brushed off by someone he’s falling for. When his usual moves fall flat, he has to show Julie the real man behind all the glitz and glamour. Will it be enough to convince Julie that it’s better to break the rules rather than risk losing love’s passionate melody?
Here is Heather S.'s review:
Trigger warning for attempted assault and date rape.
Full disclosure: I wanted to love this book. I wanted to devour every single word of it in a fit of sun loving – I am so over this winter and I really wanted to escape to someplace warm and tropical adventure. I had read Synithia Williams’ Full Court Press last month and it had hit all of those marks for me so when I saw this book on the list I snapped it up hoping to duplicate that feeling.
This book was not that book.
We open with our hero Dante, who is a successful hip-hop artist. He wants to branch out a little, which causes friction with his family who owns the hip-hop empire that also produces his music (like Empire but with less violence). He has this idea for a club that will promote this new fusion music that he wants to create and all he needs is the perfect person to help iron out all the pesky details that come with creating a business.
His buddy Raymond recommends our heroine Julie for the job despite the fact that Julie lives in Florida and, not Malibu where this club will be. Raymond is convinced that Julie would be perfect. Raymond is also convinced that Julie is his “someday” person. They made a pact once where if they were both still single at the ripe old age of 30 they would get together.
Dante shrugs, calls Julie, and continues on with his partying life.
Julie has a great sounding life in Florida running a company with her best friend – a company she co-founded when the company she was working for turned out to be less than ethical. She also has had terrible experiences dating hip-hop stars and has sworn off them. Or dating clients. She has rules and isn’t afraid to follow them. It also turns out that a lot of her rules are helpfully provided for her by Raymond who is also kinda sorta grooming her to still be single when they turn 30 and he is ready to settle down.
I was struggling through the first half of this book. The Raymond subplot didn’t amuse me because I didn’t understand where Raymond got off staking a claim on Julie while still sleeping with anybody he wanted to. And then Julie is carrying around a whole lot of emotional baggage due to her past relationships, which made for some frustrating moments where I really just wanted her to take what Dante was saying at face value.
But then we have the moment where I almost stopped reading altogether.
When Julie wakes up the next morning she is in a room she doesn’t recognize, wearing clothes that aren’t hers, and has no memory of how she might have ended up there. She also has a bandaid on her arm and when she takes it off discovers that there isn’t a wound.
She decides she must be safe because the room smells like Dante and helps herself to the shower before making herself a sandwich and settling down to watch an old musical. As you do.
When Dante returns he explains the events of the previous night. She listens. She has sex with him. For the first time. And likes it. A lot.
And I get that this moment is the catalyst where she feels like she can trust the hero but… how sexy can the moment be when you’ve just discovered that you threw up on that person the night before?
So they tumble into a relationship of sorts where Dante thinks that Julie is wonderful and Julie thinks that Dante is just saying sweet things before he moves on the next girl. Dante makes his music and Julie works on the club while they navigate this world.
One night, Julie is at Dante’s house with Dante’s family and his ex-girlfriend, who is there because his parents want them back together. Julie defends Dante to his parents who return the favor by letting Julie know that Dante should be and will be back together with his ex-girlfriend. This somehow turns into a situation where Dante and Julie end up having sex in the next room and Dante confesses his love for Julie. Who leaves abruptly. Because of course Julie believes that all things said right after sex are false thanks to an ex-boyfriend.
It wraps up with a song that Dante writes for Julie and a moment where he tries to win her back that goes terribly wrong. Some conflict resolution that seemed to be resolved a little too easily and Julie finds herself moving to Malibu.
This author gets a lot of things right. I enjoyed her dialogue and her sense of place. I appreciated that her characters made mistakes and owned it. I liked how for the most part people used their words for conflict resolution. I struggled with believing that this relationship was working or going to work. I also didn’t always feel that the reactions of these characters made sense and once I felt that it was hard to continue to fully immerse myself in this world.
Overall I would say read this author. But read her other books instead.
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Okay…let me get this straight: She wakes up after being drugged and her first response upon being told of the previous events isn’t anger or, I don’t know, concern? Desire to report the schmuck to the police? Or at least outing him for his heinous behavior? And then has sex with her so-called savior immediately after and then, again, later with his parents & ex-girlfriend in the next room? Thanks no. Hard pass.
Without too much spoiling, can someone explain the band-aid thing to me? Because maybe I’m missing something, but I am completely confused by that.
Hi Rose – the hero called a doctor to his house to check on the heroine after the heroine was drugged. The bandaid is leftover from where the doctor drew blood to test it for drugs.
@HeatherS Thank you! I thought it was code for some new thing the kids are doing. Still sounds like a batshit situation she should’ve hightailed it out of, but at least there’s logic behind the band-aid.
@Heather: This gets worse. So the doctor treats an unconscious woman at a private home- not her home. Doctor takes her blood for testing, an invasive procedure, sends it off to a lab somewhere, then leaves her unconscious in the company of someone who is not next of kin, and without any nursing/medical oversight.
Really?
Does Raymond get hit by a truck? Because that’s how that plot thread needs to get tied up…
Also, Malibu seems like a weird place to put a club. In my mind, it’s all rich old white people, a couple of shopping centers and some decent hiking trails (that are nevertheless not worth the hassle of beating the heat/traffic by getting up super early). I would think you’d really want to be in Los Angeles, maybe somewhere near-ish to USC so you could get students, West Hollywood people, plus you’d be relatively accessible to some of the more affluent majority black neighborhoods and the slowly revitalizing downtown population. Apparently I feel pretty strongly about this topic, because I was thinking about it in the shower and literally couldn’t remember if I’d washed my hair or not…
Wow…just…I mean…I’m with Hazel on this one. SO many lines were crossed and I just don’t get how the heroine could be feeling all about the sexy times after she’s been drugged and had blood drawn while unconscious, waking up in an unfamiliar room…
The part about her feeling safe because the room smells like Dante is…WHAT?!
@Hazel: It was pretty crazy just reading it. I read it twice I was so convinced that I had missed some important details.
@Christine: You make some excellent points on Malibu demographics. According to wikipedia (though not always the most accurate source) Malibu has the largest white population percentage in Los Angeles county with 92% and a median income of 133,869.00 – so yes, maybe not the best place to put a hip new fusion club. I never would have thought about that. Thank you!
@Christine:
Long ago, in a different venue, I made a rule that any post which causes me to laugh out loud gets an upvote.
Now, here’s what bugs me. The Summary–which I assume is from the publisher–says “R & B superstar”. The review–written by a human who has presumably read the book and paid attention–consistently says “hip-hop”. Is the publisher afraid that describing his hero as a hip-hop artist will lead to smaller sales than the safe and familiar “R & B”? I have this horrible mental picture of a promo writer turning to his office-mate: “What’s that black music called again? The guy in the book is some kind of singer.” “You mean R & B?” “Yeah, I guess so, sounds good anyway.”
I’m about 3/4 of the way through this right now (in paperback) and I’m really enjoying it. I know nothing about Malibu so I can’t speak to that part, but the book is consistent throughout that Dante has (up to the point where the book begins) been a R&B and pop star, and his father wants him to collaborate with Antwan (“the biggest name in hip-hop”) to strengthen his appeal to the hip-hop crowd and also to persuade Antwan to sign with their label.
Also, Julie lives in Atlanta. There was a previous work project in Miami, but there were/are also Atlanta projects and it’s clear that she lives in Atlanta.